Synopsis
The play opens with Narada – the mythological sage, who is famous for his closeness to the God as well as his habit of playing mischief, Maruti and Ashwatthama, two characters from Indian epics who are immortals. However there is a major difference in their respective immortality – Maruti has got it as a boon while Ashwatthama has got it as a curse. We come to know that they have a custom of meeting after two hundred years and they are meeting now after such a period.
They are in an office of a businessman – Sudhir. They look on at the proceedings with bored detachment. Suddenly there is an accident outside in which a young boy gets injured, but nobody from the office shows any concern. Maruti and Ashwatthama get disturbed at this callousness. Narada informs them that there is no need to get disturbed. He tells them that in 3985 medical science is so developed that there is no natural, accidental or illness death any more. Now the Central Computer allots every newborn child a specific amount of life. Then the child is given free education. The mode of exchange – currency – now is life span. Every adult is supposed to work after education and in return gets more life (in stead of money). All the exchanges happen using the life span instead of money. It is an extreme condition of capitalism. What they see is ruthless competition all round as if one does not earn enough one simply dies – when his/her spending is more than their earning. There is no other death as all the diseases have a cure, all the body parts have replacements – thereby eliminating aging as well.
The duo initially are not interested. But when they see Sudhir, the capitalist behaving very badly and exploitatively they get angry. Narada instigates them into activity by challenging their honour. He makes them realize that now Maruti and Ashwatthama happen to be the richest people. They have never-ending supply of life i.e. money. He also tells them that this is a good chance for them to get over their eternal boredom. The result is that they get interested and start taking part in the business activities. They start a company – Maruti Ashwatthama and Associates. To start with they are just reckless and do it as a game but slowly they get more and more involved. As they have a never ending supply of life it is very difficult for anybody else to compete with them. What ensues is a ruthless struggle for existence. Sudhir tries to manipulate the central controlling computer, as that is the only way to fight Maruti and Ashwatthama.
The play ends as bizarrely as it starts by the entire human race thrown back by 2000 years – into 1985. Nobody even realizes that they have suddenly been shifted in time and have a new set of memory. The relationship between time and memory, and the limitations of human understanding are revealed to Maruti and Ashwatthama who are dumbfounded at seeing the people around them playing this game of life with as much zeal as ever even under this changed conditions. They are back to where they were but for them everything has changed in this absurd existence – at least for the time being!
Director’s Note
Charshe Kotee confronts us with the feelings aroused by our realization of mortality. Concepts interwoven to produce a bizarre, surreal pictorial canvas, situated in 3985, in which human brutality often flashes up behind professed irony that is sure of it’s effect. It focuses upon awareness of life in a society that has already experienced the final fate, veering wildly between drunken comedy and fear of death. The audience plunges into the surrealistic worlds created by the happenings on the stage, and move about with the performers within a fascinating world both timeless and replete with references to our own actual existence. This play is full of meaning, with lots of levels – technical levels, theatrical levels as well as levels of emotion.
Salvador Dalì (1904-1989)
The Persistence of Memory, 1931, Oil on canvas; 9½ x 13, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
The well-known surrealistic piece introduced the image of the soft melting pocket watch. It epitomises Dalí’s theory of “softness” and “hardness”, which was central to his thinking at the time. Shattered by Einstein’s special theory of relativity, had to be discarded and replaced in the early part of this century; “at rest” was no longer a reality as the philosophical perception of time shifted from an absolute to an eternal state of becoming. Much discussion gave rise to questions about when time began, will it exist forever, and had it always existed. Those limp watches are as soft as overripe cheese—indeed “the camembert of time,” in Dali’s phrase. Here time must lose all meaning. Permanence goes with it. The ‘Soft watch’ acts as a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of mankind, our inevitable decay and our subsequent obsession with the nature of time set against us.
Usually we think of these bent watches as referring to Einstein’s theory in which our world is becoming a spatio-temporal continuum; the world’s concept of time and space was certainly changing. The three open and vulnerable watches (past, present, future?) are within orthogonals which point to the top center of the painting (heaven?).
Trees, tall and erect, are male, according to Freud; but this tree is scrawny and lifeless. The extending phallic branch, with its post-coital watch, points to rock formations which in actuality are the granite outcroppings above the Bay of Cullero near Dali’s home.
